Why F1 2020's underdog star is relishing a year of continuity

The glitzy rebranding of Toro Rosso as AlphaTauri ahead of the 2020 Formula 1 season represented the start of a new era for the squad. It should no longer be regarded simply as a B-team to Red Bull Racing, with its foremost task to act as a first step into F1 for the energy-drinks giant's young drivers. Instead, AlphaTauri was now a 'sister' team with a fresh look and higher expectations.

In his first full season back at the Faenza-based squad, Pierre Gasly took everything in his stride and delivered F1's most surprising result of the year. A little over 12 months after his first race back at Toro Rosso following his demotion from Red Bull, he became an F1 race winner in the Italian Grand Prix. And yet to simply highlight Gasly's Monza victory would overlook a number of other outstanding displays throughout the season that made him one of F1's top performers in 2020.

"You could see this was another Pierre," says AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost. "Especially in the second half of last year, he improved a lot, but also during the winter months, he worked very hard in every aspect. When he started the season, he made another big step forward on his performance. He has increased his level of experience enormously and, for me, he belongs among the best drivers in the field."

Gasly's return to the team in the summer of 2019 required a lot of readjustment. Crestfallen after a brutal 12-race run at Red Bull, he had to gel with a new engineering team around him as he looked to bounce back. His maiden F1 podium in Brazil was a huge statement, proving that Gasly was comfortable back in his old surroundings, but there was still work to do for 2020.

PLUS: Top 10 Formula 1 drivers of 2020

"Communication with the team was really a clear factor," Gasly says when asked to highlight the key elements in his improvement. "It was about really understanding and finding compromise - what I want, what they can give me, what I can give them to really maximise everything in the car, and understanding each other.

"Coming in the middle of the season, I was thrown there with new people around me. So you have to learn about each other race after race, and things get better and better all the time. But this year [2020], I really feel we made another step."

AlphaTauri technical director Jody Egginton credits Gasly's attitude upon returning to the team in paving the way for his 2020 success.

"He had his Red Bull experience, came back, and he got straight down to work," says Egginton. "That's a credit to him. It's also a credit to the environment in the team. It's a good environment compared to a lot of teams.

"Pierre has got a good engineering team around him. But he's also getting better as a driver. We're feeding off that and it's motivating. He gives 110%, and you can't really ask for more than that."

"It's not impossible, even though we were a midfield team. That should be motivation for all of us in the team to try to repeat strong performances like we have had in Sao Paulo or Monza" Pierre Gasly

Gasly started the season well with a run to seventh in Austria, avoiding trouble as the quicker midfield runners dropped the ball, but had difficult weekends in the Styrian and Hungarian races due to factors outside his control after making Q3 at both races.

At the British Grand Prix, he fought to seventh once again, and brought home points in both Spain and Belgium. A mid-race safety car at Spa denied him a possible top-five finish, but he was still able to make 10 overtakes through the race en route to eighth. And then came Monza.

PLUS: How a "supernatural" adaption resurrected Gasly's F1 career

"I remember every single second of that race and the celebration," Gasly recalls, beaming. "It's something in my mind which will never go away."

The images of Gasly sitting on the Monza podium, drinking in the enormity of his achievement, are some of the most evocative we have seen in F1 for some time. It was a true giantkilling performance, the like of which has been largely absent in recent eras.

"It was something quite incredible," adds Gasly. "When I'm in Italy in my apartment, in the same place I had my breakfast before my win, I see the trophy. It feels pretty special. Every morning, I take my coffee with the trophy in front of me, and think, 'Yeah, we've done it'.

"It's not impossible, even though we were a midfield team. That should be motivation for all of us in the team to try to repeat strong performances like we have had in Sao Paulo or Monza as much as we can."

But it's not just Sao Paulo and Monza that stand out among Gasly's performances since returning to the team with which he made his F1 debut in 2017. After his win, he produced a brilliant drive at the Nurburgring to grab sixth after starting 12th, nailing his two-stop strategy, and was then sublime at Algarve Circuit as he fought through to fifth on a day when the top four were out of reach.

PLUS: The five best race drives of F1 2020

Had it not been for an early loss of water pressure at Imola, where he qualified fourth, Gasly could well have snared a second 2020 podium there. He regularly featured in the thick of the points, not simply confined to the fringes of the top 10. It's a level of consistency that Gasly was eager to find, particularly after his Red Bull struggles.

"I believe I'm performing better," he says. "This was a target for myself, to be more consistent, being on top of balance, strategy, tyre deg - to be better at reacting to all these factors, and to get a more consistent performance through the season.

"I'm really happy about it. We have had many top-10 finishes, many Q3s as well. We've been consistently maximising the performance with the car we have."

It's a world away from the rocky spell Gasly had at Red Bull. The less-pressurised setting has certainly contributed to his rise, with Egginton highlighting the "good, caring environment" at AlphaTauri. But for Tost, the key was the car.

"It's good that a driver feels at home and feels accepted," he says. "You can have the best atmosphere in the team, the best family - but if the car is a shithouse, you simply don't see the success. Then people are not happy, and not in a good atmosphere, and then it will change the other way around."

The forgiving nature of the AlphaTauri AT01 brought out the best in Gasly. The struggles of his successor at Red Bull, Alex Albon, serve as proof of the difficulties most drivers will face when handed a car with such a narrow window of performance. It is something Egginton was always keen to avoid.

"We've tried to increase the operating window that the car works in, to make it easier for the driver," Egginton explains. "On top of trying to put more downforce on the car, we're saying, 'What's the window we have to operate in? How flexible can we be?' If it's a windy day, we can still make the car work. We give them a lot of corner-entry support and things. We've been chipping away at that, and he's responding to that."

Tost sees AlphaTauri's future as being "oriented and concentrated" around Gasly, letting him set the direction it takes.

"The team listens to the technical feedback of the driver," Tost says. "The designers or the engineers, they keep the consideration of all technical feedback from such a good driver so that they make next year's car fit with the driving style of this driver. To make the car simply faster, that's the normal way, yes."

"I'm happy to take more responsibilities. I want to perform. I want to fight at the front, and that's what I will be pushing the team to do" Pierre Gasly

Gasly ended the year with 75 points - the same total he had after 17 races in 2019, and more than double the score of outgoing team-mate Daniil Kvyat. Red Bull was swift in announcing that he would be staying at AlphaTauri for next year, viewing him as a long-term leader for the team as it grows into its new sister-team status with Formula 2 graduate Yuki Tsunoda alongside. It's a challenge Gasly relishes.

"They have big ambitions," he says. "I'm really happy and excited to be involved in this project. We know in F1, things don't change from one year to another, so it takes time to build that sort of project, and to really be at the top.

"But I'm happy to take more responsibilities. I want to perform. I want to fight at the front, and that's what I will be pushing the team to do. I've really seen the difference from when I joined in 2017, and the team that AlphaTauri is now. Things are really going in the right direction. I want to take this team as high as possible."

He's already stood on the top step of the podium. So how much further can AlphaTauri go? With Gasly at the helm, a no-blame team culture and a forgiving approach to car design, there could be yet more silverware to follow.